Statement | Published on February 18, 2012 at 2:11 am

February 17, 2012: We are pleased to hear that the United States has decided to press for action at the March session of the Human Rights Council on accountability

Suzanne Nossel, Executive Director, Amnesty International USA. Nossel was a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State

for wartime abuses in Sri Lanka. This issue has long been a high priority for us due to the massive scale of abuses committed in the final months of the war and the Sri Lankan government’s resistance to any serious domestic inquiry.

In September, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon referred to the President of the HRC and the High Commissioner the report of his Panel of Experts, which finds considerable evidence of war crimes and other abuses committed by both sides during the Sri Lankan civil war. According to the report, up to 40,000 civilians were killed in the final five months of the war, mainly due to indiscriminate shelling of civilian-populated areas, including hospitals and food distribution centers. The rebel group LTTE used civilians as human shields. A documentary by UK’s Channel 4, Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields, released in June 2011, records some of the abuses through graphic video of executions allegedly by the Sri Lankan security forces.

The UN Panel and international organizations have rejected a domestic mechanism, the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), as inadequate and lacking the independence necessary to conduct an impartial and effective investigation of these abuses. The LLRC report issued in December made some helpful recommendations, but was dismissive of serious abuses by government forces and the need for accountability. Now is the time for the HRC to demonstrate its commitment to justice for victims and their families by taking effective action toward establishing an independent international accountability mechanism.

1 Comment to “NGOs Call on U.S. to Establish International Accountability Mechanism on Sri Lanka at UN Human Rights Council”

[...] People are fed up with the Sri Lankan government. It is unlikely that the US would be pushing so publicly for a resolution on Sri Lanka if they did not think they could get the votes in Geneva this March. Observers have every reason to believe that the votes are already there. Now it is just a question of how much the language of the draft resolution will be modified before it is put to a vote. A resolution calling for the government of Sri Lanka to implement the LLRC recommendations is one thing; members of the HRC could go much further. Major international NGOs have already said that they would like to see an “independent international accountability mechanism” come out of Geneva. [...]